Sasha's Kitchen: Lowfat Raspberry Marzipan Swirl Cheesecake

Here's another great cheesecake recipe I made from the Magnolia Bakery  cookbook, but this one I adapted to make it low fat.  And you know what? It still tasted fantastic!  Last August, I canned some raspberry jam from local Farmer's Market raspberries.  It came out great for my first time making jam and made four jars which I have been enjoying since.  I used some of those fabulous raspberry preserves that I made myself for the swirl on this cheesecake that you can feel good about eating.  Oh, and before you leave, check out my latest post on Potluck, the ShopRite blog panel for some delicious cookies!

Lowfat Raspberry Marzipan Cheesecake (adapted from The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook)
Crust
6 tablesppons melted butter
1 1/2 cup Nilla wafter crumbs
1/2 cup finely toasted almonds, pulverized into crumbs
Filling
2 eight ounce packages lowfat cream cheese
8 oz almond paste, crumbled
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups fat free sour cream
Topping
5-6 T raspberry preserves
1 tsp lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 325.  To make the crust, combine the butter with the Nilla wafer crumbs and almond crumbs.  Press into the bottom of a 10-inch springform pan and bake for 10 minutes.  Allow to cool.

To make the filling, in a stand mixer beat the cream cheese and almond paste for several minutes until smooth.  Gradually beat in the sugar and add the eggs one at a time and beat until the batter is lump-free.  Stir in the vanilla and sour cream, scraping down the sides of the mixer to combine the ingredients well.  To make the topping, mix the raspberry preserves and the lemon juice and set aside.

Pour the batter into the springform pan on top of the crust.  Drop the raspberry mix on top by the spoonful and swirl  into a decorative pattern using the tip of a sharp knife.  Bake for about 80 minutes  until the edges are set and the center jiggles slightly when the pan is shaken.  At the end of the baking time, turn off the heat and prop the oven door with a wooden spoon and keep the cheesecake in the oven for an hour.  Then remove and refrigerate for twelve hours before eating.  This was delicious!

Sasha's Kitchen: Lowfat Raspberry Marzipan Swirl Cheesecake

Sasha's Kitchen: Creme De Menthe Chocolate Chip Shamrock Cupcakes

Many of my readers have probably figured out that I enjoy making cupcakes for just about any occasion.  So, even though I don't have a drop of Irish blood, I would be remiss if I didn't prepare a cupcake for St. Patrick's Day.  I love festive, bright colors, so it was natural for me to consider that the cupcakes would need to be some shade of green.  Rather than peppermint extract, which I felt would be too powerful of a flavor for cupcakes, I decided to use creme de menthe liquor to flavor the cupcakes.  You can buy creme de menthe liquor in a lovely shade of shamrock green, which provides both flavor and color to the cupcakes.  I also incorporated chocolate chips, to add chocolate flavor as well, which mixes nicely with the mint.  The end result tastes like a cupcake version of mint chocolate chip ice cream.  I enjoyed making these, and they were actually not too complicated to make.

I'm a planner so it might not surprise you to know that I have already thought about my cupcake recipes and designs for the next couple of weeks.   I do sometimes cook on the fly, but 85% of my meals are those that I meticulously plan in advance of my weekly Sunday grocery shopping so I don't have to think about it during the week.  I'm also not so great at keeping secrets so I'm spilling my upcoming cupcake plans: pug puppy cupcakes (in honor of my pug's upcoming birthday), coconut cupcakes and s'mores cupcakes . . . So stay tuned.  It make take me a month or so to get through all those flavors with the holiday of Passover approaching soon.

Creme De Menthe Chocolate Chip Shamrock Cupcakes 

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

2 large eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup green creme de menthe

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Sasha's Creme De Menthe Cream Cheese Frosting

1 stick of butter

2 cups confectioner's sugar

8 oz cream cheese

1 T creme de menthe

drop of green food coloring

To prepare the cupcakes, mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.  In a stand mixer, beat together the eggs, sugar butter until smooth.  Beat in the dry ingredients alternating with the creme de menthe and milk. Next, mix the chips in a bowl with a teaspoon of flour.  I have learned that if you mix the chips with flour first, they won't sink to the bottom of the cupcakes like they otherwise would.  This is one of my "baking secrets" that I picked up from a cupcake-baking friend.  Mix in the flour coated chocolate chips.  

Spoon the batter into 12 cupcake liners in your silicon baking tray.  Bake for about 30 minutes in an oven preheated to 350 degrees.  It may take a bit longer depending on your oven.  My cupcakes came out after about 35 minutes.  To test if they are done, stick in a toothpick and when it comes out clean the cupcakes are ready to come out.  You don't want the cupcakes to brown, so if that starts happening, it is certainly time to remove them from the oven.

To make the frosting, beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth.  Add confectioners sugar until a frosting is formed.  Beat in the creme de menthe and food coloring.  The end result is a basic cream cheese frosting that has a subtle creme de menthe flavor.  I made the little shamrocks using marzipan that I mixed with a drop of green food coloring in my kitchenaid mixer.  The cupcakes are the same pretty color of mint green as my mixer.

Sasha's Kitchen: Creme De Menthe Chocolate Chip Shamrock Cupcakes

Sasha's Kitchen: Eat Your Heart Out Red Velvet Cupcakes (Valentine's Day Special)

These cupcakes are probably the girliest, cutest, prettiest cupcakes I have ever made.  They are perfect for Valentine's Day, for a dinner party with friends, for a girl's night get together, or for making with a little girl.  I decided to make these  for the ending to a seven course dinner party with good friends who were visiting from Toronto, and my Mom, visiting from Rochester.  Despite the professional appearance of the cupcakes, they are actually not that difficult to make, as long as you have an artisan mixer and the right gel food colorings.

I have long loved red velvet cupcakes.  They have just enough chocolate in them (a couple of Tablespons in the batter) to have a light chocolate flavor to them, but they are not an overpowering death by chocolate cupcake.  Although I developed my own recipe for the frosting, I used one of Martha Stewart's recipes for the red velvet cupcake.  There's only so many ways one could make a red velvet cupcake, but what I like about this recipe is that the batter does not use any butter - only canola oil, which makes it a tad bit healthier - I suppose.

The red velvet hue from the red velvet cupcakes, or in a red velvet cake, comes in part from the chocolate powder, but also from the red food coloring in the cupcakes.  One thing you should be sure to buy to make these cupcakes with top-notch results is some professional grade gel food colorings - this is such a good investment if you plan to do a considerable amount of baking - I got 12 colors for about $10-15 from New York Cake.

Here is Martha Stewart's original red velvet cupcake recipe, which was my starting point, and below is the recipe I used, with some slight modifications.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I did not use cake flour and they were still great)
2 T unsweetened dutch process cocoa
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups canola oil
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon red gel-paste food coloring (use red, not pink)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp white vinegar

Sasha's Frosting
1 package (8 oz) reduced fat cream cheese
4 cups confectioner's sugar
1 stick of butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 small squirts of pink gel food coloring  in soft pink

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  First to prepare the cupcakes, mix the flour, salt, cocoa powder in a large bowl.  Beat the sugar and oil in your artisan mixer until well combined, addding the eggs one at a time, and continuing to beat.  Mix in the gel food coloring and the vanilla extract.  Turn the artisan mixer to low speed, and add the flour and the buttermilk, alternating between additions of each.  Mix well.   In a small bowl, mix the baking soda and the vinegar (it will fizz, just like those volcanos you made as a kid).  Add to the batter and mix for about ten seconds.

Line two silicon cupcake trays with cupcake liners and put the batter in the liners to fill about three quarters full (my husband, Brad, always does this part because he is very neat at doing this without dripping cupcake batter everywhere).  Bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes until it passes the fork/toothpick test.  Try not to open the oven during the baking process if you can help it, as they will rise better if you don't open it until the end.

To make the frosting, beat the cream cheese and butter at high speed in the artisan mixer for a couple of minutes.  Beat in the powdered sugar (you should put the plastic sides up on the mixer so it doesn't make a powdery mess).  Add a drop or two of the pink food coloring and keep mixing at high speed until the frosting has a nice consistency - a few minutes at least.

To make the decorations on top, buy some marzipan and mold hearts.  I used an unused watercolor paintbrush to paint the hearts with some lightly diluted food coloring and let them dry .  Wait at least an hour or two to frost the cupcakes - they must cool off completely or you will melt the frosting.  To get the professional look, I used a frosting bag fitted with a fluted tip.  When you squeeze the bag to push out the icing, do so in a circular manner to frost the cupcake the way i did.  The result is a pretty, professional look.  Top the cupcakes with the marzipan hearts.

These cupcakes taste as good as they look.  The recipe makes abotu 24 cupcakes (we made 22), but feel free to cut the recipe in half if you want a smaller batch.  Our house is filled with cupcakes - everywhere you look there's a cupcake.

Sasha's Kitchen: Eat Your Heart Out Red Velvet Cupcakes (Valentine's Day Special)

Sasha's Kitchen: Carrot Papaya Coconut Cupcakes

Carrots, a perfect winter-themed vegetable are one of the December ingredients on this site that our writers are working on incorporating into their recipes. I wanted to include carrots in my next cupcake recipe, while mixing up some tropical flavors. So, I decided to create a recipe for carrot papaya cupcakes, and wound up throwing in some coconut, which mixed nicely with the other flavors.

I enjoyed decorating these cupcakes as well. This time, I made a pretty matching buttercream, dyed to the perfect shade of peachy orange. I created miniature carrots out of marzipan to decorate each cupcake and used an unused watercolor brush (I like to do a lot of painting - acrylic, watercolor and oil)to paint the carrots using water-based food coloring. More complex marzipan (and fondant) painting projects, which I plan to do in the future, will require investing in some professional food colorings, which I plan to purchase at my local store that sells cooking and baking equipment when I go out tomorrow. This will be perfect for upcoming projects including fondant-marshmallow Santa peeps and dreidel/Christmas tree cookies with Royal icing.

At any rate, these cupcakes really are not difficult to make, so don't be intimidated by the photos. It is worth giving a try at home, even if you have never worked with marzipan before.

If you cannot find fresh papaya to make your puree, (it's not exactly in season but you should still be able to get it, since it's not like papayas are ever grown in New York anyhow) you can substitute mango or pineapple.

Sasha's Carrot Papaya Coconut Cupcakes

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup sweetened coconut
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup milk
3/4 cup papaya chunks, pureed in a mini-prep or food processor
1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter
2/3 cup grated carrots
1/4 cup canola oil

I discovered that I only had organic baby carrots, which are quite difficult to grate with a peeler, unsurprisingly. To make the mix, combine the flour, coconut, baking powder and salt in one bowl. In a second bowl, combine the carrots, papaya puree, milk, sugar and melted butter. Combine all ingredients and fill your cupcake trays 2/4 to the top. I suggest using silicon cupcake trays with paper liners. This recipe should make about a dozen cupcakes.



I baked the cupcakes at an oven preheated to 350 F for about 28 minutes (took a little longer than I thought it would). You should test them with a toothpick or fork to make sure they are done on the inside.

While the cupcakes were baking, I molded little carrots with a top out of marzipan. I used a 50-50 mix of several drops of food coloring with several drops of water (slightly diluted) to create orange and green colors. I painted the carrots with a watercolor brush (one that had never been used in painting with watercolors!) I plan on experimenting in the future with more professional grade food colorings, but for this project, the grocery store standard food coloring did the trick.

After taking the cupcakes out of the oven they should be allowed to cool for at least 30 minutes. If you frost too soon, the frosting will melt on the cupcakes.
For my frosting, I decided to do a plain buttercream, which is the most common type of cupcake frosting. It is also exactly what the name implies - butter and sugar, and lots of both. So let's not confuse these cupcakes with anything too healthy just because I made them with fresh fruits and veggies. They are quite tasty and a great treat to serve at a party.

Simple Buttercream

2 sticks of butter
3 cups of confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
several drops of food coloring

First, beat the butter in an artisan stand mixer. You really cannot make buttercream without a stand mixer. Some people can do this using a hand mixer, but I never could because 1) I could not beat the butter to the right consistency and 2) food flies everywhere and it makes a colossal mess in the kitchen (literally - butter on the walls). You should beat the butter well on a high speed. Then add the three cups of confectioners sugar, which is loose powdered sugar. Don't press it in the cups, but keep it light and airy when measuring. Beat the two together until they form a frosting and keep beating beyond that for a minute or two at a high speed. It will take a couple minutes for the two to mix properly, as in the beginning it just looks like you added too much sugar. Then beat in the vanilla and add a few drops of food coloring. I chose to add three drops of yellow and 1 drop of red to make an orange colored buttercream.

To decorate the cupcakes, frost with a frosting bag fitted with either a plain or fluted tip, which will allow the cupcakes to have a really professional look to them. It's actually very easy to do and the frosting bags are inexpensive and surprisingly painless to clean when you are done.

Top with the marzipan carrot and enjoy! Next up: apple sorbet with poached quince shortcakes, so stay tuned.

Akitcheninbrooklyn.com is doing a roundtable on carrots for the month of December. For additional carrot recipes, click here for Amasea's carroty latkes or here for Amasea's sweet gingery carrots.

Sasha's Kitchen: Carrot Papaya Coconut Cupcakes